


The Geometry of Belief

by Laura



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 12:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5586484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura/pseuds/Laura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets exactly what he wants. It's not all it's cracked up to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Geometry of Belief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rivkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivkat/gifts).



> Happy holidays! And huge apologies for being late.
> 
> Thanks to Mollyamory for the beta. Title taken from Age of Ultron.

“I’m just saying, in theory, it’s possible this isn’t our thing,” Sam says. “Because it’s been three days, man, and we got nothing.”

This is perfectly accurate. Last Friday, Don Rollins stabbed a pen through his boss’s eye, right in the middle of a staff presentation on the new office security system. Said right before he did it, and every moment since, that he didn’t want to, hadn’t meant to. A bullshit story, or maybe just a psychotic break, except that three days later his sister Karen dropped dead, too. They’ve chased jobs for less, and Sam’s sure the job wasn’t the point, anyway. Dean had wanted to be driving, to take them both on the road like there are still things they can outrun. So here they are, Christmas Eve in middle of nowhere Mississippi, though in fairness, it might be the nicest middle of nowhere town Sam’s ever stayed in. 

They’re even staying in a guesthouse, not a motel, in rooms that smell of pine and lemon, rather than smoke and damp. The owners— Chris and Addie — have had homemaking for them every day since they’ve been here, and right now, Sam’s eating what might be the best breakfast he’s ever had, in a diner every single person in town has told them to try.

That’s probably why Dean’s face pretty clearly says he thinks Sam’s line of argument is bullshit, but he holds back on whatever he was about to say — probably some variation of what the fuck, Sam? — in favour of making eyes at their waitress. Kate, according to the tag on her shirt. She makes eyes right back at Dean, and her smile is warm and friendly, full of promise if Dean wants it. Sam isn’t exactly surprised by the twinge of jealousy. Since the Mark, he’s been possessive again, or maybe just more honestly, but it still feels like reliving being sixteen and awkward, when wanting his brother changed seemingly overnight from something deniable to all-consuming.

“We were told to stop by for the food,” Dean’s saying, “but they didn’t mention the staff was the real highlight.” Sam nearly laughs, but the fucker is sincere, which has always been the root of his charm, even if he doesn’t know it. The smile he gives her is all open, honest contentment, and that’s like something from years ago, too.

“Dude, what?” Dean says when she’s gone, and Sam looks away. Watching Dean isn’t anything knew, either, but he used to be better at not being caught. He quashes the flare of want, of _need_ , focuses on the fondness, because that’s easy now, as uncomplicated again as anything ever gets between them. 

“”I think you used to do that better,” he says, just because. “Do you think the Mark took your power with it? Like that episode with the third nipple in _Friends_?”

Dean flips him off, but he wants to smile; Sam can tell. “I think you used to be less annoying,” he says, and then, “Oh, wait, I don’t.”

“I think you were probably funnier in general,” Sam says, and he kicks him hard under the table, because someone has to keep this conversation on track. “Seriously, Dean. If this isn’t our deal, we should go. There are things that definitely _are_ our deal, and they aren’t going anywhere.”

“Please. Not over breakfast.” Dean looks out of the window rather than at Sam, like the few stores across the street with fake Christmas trees and the clear blue sky overhead might be the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. Sam waits. “You know this is something,” Dean says finally. “Or I do, anyway. We’ve been doing this long enough, and sometimes we know.”

Sam shrugs. He’s less sure of his instincts than he was, but not of Dean’s. And Dean trusted him, let him go to Lucifer because Sam asked, and hasn’t even bitched him out for it since. And there’s that whole part where Dean actually _got_ him out. Sam figures he owes him one. “If nothing else weird happens by tomorrow, we call it quits, okay?”

Dean nods, his face relaxing, though probably only because Sam knows to look for it. “Older sis is back in town now,” Dean says. “We should start with her.”

Alicia Martin looks on the verge of tears the whole time they interview her, but doesn’t let a single one fall. Instead, she says Steven Lafferty was a grade A dick, that just because no one would say it, that didn’t make it not true. Don had been a victim, she said; one mistake and he’d been kept working there forever. Doesn’t make her brother a killer, either, but she seems baffled rather than convinced when she says it. Hard to argue, Sam supposes, with the room full of witnesses and the bloody pen with his fingerprints all over it.

“It’s motive,” Sam says now, when they’re back in the diner again, because no way Dean was going anywhere else. The mashed potatoes and meatloaf were somehow even better than the morning’s eggs, and Dean looks positively gleeful as he shovels mouthfuls of chocolate pie into his face. 

“It might be,” Dean says. “But as a counter argument, Sam, let me say: pie. If we leave, we won’t have any.” The spoon goes into his mouth again, and Dean moans around it, and Sam really is embarrassed by how easy he is these days.

The waitress chooses that moment to fill up their coffee. She’s the same one as before, but this time it’s Sam she smiles at. Soft and knowing, like he’s just that readable. God help him, he probably is. He watches Dean lick his spoon clean and wonders what would happen if he leaned across the table and kissed the chocolate off his mouth. 

Dean would bolt, he thinks. Before hell was different, a desperate, not-real stretch of time, fear and bravado wiping out every wall or boundary they had. Dean thought he was never coming back. And even when he did, maybe _they_ didn’t. Fuck knows tearing each other apart sometimes seemed like the only thing they were good at over the past few years. But the possible end of the world aside, things are better now. Sam has reasons to be hopeful again, things to want and hold onto.

It’s why he resists the urge to just give in, let Dean have a few more days here where it’s quiet. He’s not big on anything having a hold over his brother — see the possessive part. He’s all for fixing their screw-ups and saving the world, but he’s honest enough to admit getting Dean out of Amara’s grip is top of the list.

“We should tap out, Dude,” he says, when Kate’s gone and it’s clear Dean isn’t going to say anything else helpful on the subject.

Dean grunts, noncommittal, but he doesn’t argue. Can’t, really. The only other notable thing that’s happened all day is Sam accidentally nearly showing Chris and Addie’s son the skin mag he bought for Dean. (He tried to save the situation by distracting him with the toy black muscle car he bought too, though he can’t be completely sure it worked.) Beyond that, another trip to the morgue turned up the same zero as the last time, and there’s no EMF readings, cattle slaughtering, or any of the usual signs that would indicate weirdness of any kind. 

“We can still keep an eye on the place,” Sam says. “Come back if anything else happens. And if we leave in the morning, we could be home in time for some of Christmas in the bunker. Might be nice.”

It’s his big gun, though for a moment, even that doesn’t work. Dean’s fingers clench so tight around his coffee mug Sam can see it from across the table; they match the set of his jaw and the tight line of his mouth. Finally, he sets his mug down, says, “Fine. But I’m not cooking you dinner.”

“Maybe I’ll do it,” Sam says as he drops their cash on the table, and Dean loosens up enough to grin at him.

“That’s probably the one thing that would destroy the indestructible bunker,” he says. “Actually, most of Kansas, too.”

“We can’t all have your culinary prowess, Martha.” Dean swats Sam on the back of the head as they stand to leave, and Sam’s feeling pretty good. They pick up some beer on the way back to their room, and Dean gratefully accepts the tray of cookies Addie offers them when they get in. It’s stupid warm for December, so they watch _Die Hard_ — the only Christmas film Sam’s willing to tolerate — shoulder to shoulder with the windows open, and the sound of carols drifting in from somewhere down the street. It’s the most normal Christmas Sam’s had in years, and he drifts to sleep thinking maybe he can see the appeal after all.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, and Dean says, without preamble, “There’s like seven feet of snow on the ground, and I think….maybe a werwolf outside?” 

Sam says, “Oh,” which sounds totally wrong. And then, after a pause, “Did we swap bodies?”

As middle of the night catastrophes go, they’ve had worse. There isn’t seven feet of snow on the ground, though there is a fuck-ton of it, drifts piling high while thick, fast flakes continue to fall. The werewolf — assuming that’s what it is — doesn’t look like any of the ones they’ve come across, but it’s certainly pretty terrifying — huge claws and teeth, all the usual wolf trappings. It circles the house, howling at the sky, more pitiful than menacing, at least to Sam.

“Still think it’s not our thing?” Dean asks, and even the surprise of seeing Sam like he is isn’t overshadowing his smugness. “You really have never looked so good, just so you know.” Sam rolls his eyes instead of answering, which makes Dean laugh. 

“I don’t look nearly as annoying doing that as you do,” Dean says. He shoves his feet into his boots without waiting for a response. “We should go downstairs. See how the family are.”

Sam glares — though he suspects Dean is right and it’s not nearly as effective as it should be. “You don’t think they’re gonna think it’s weird there are _two_ identical versions of you?” 

Because of course they haven’t swapped bodies. Sam has just turned into Dean, from his ridiculous spiky hair to his fucked up knee, and his goddamn deformed toes. Sam keeps sneaking glances at himself in the mirror by the door, kind of fixated on how he looks exactly like Dean, and how at the same time he doesn’t at all. 

Dean shrugs, and goes on stubbornly looking exactly like himself. “I think they’re gonna know for sure it’s Christmas now,” he says. 

“Dean.”

“You still manage to sound exactly as whiny as usual,” Dean says. He flops down on his bed, his gaze back on the snow outside. “You go. I’ll stay here. Take a nap. Or prepare the silver. Whichever. I’m not feeling all that threatened by wolfy out there, but I was wrong about something once, a really long time ago. It could happen again.”

Sam’s grateful for the chance to be doing anything but standing around in Dean’s body, so he doesn’t put up more than a token protest. Downstairs, Addie and Chris are huddled by the kitchen window. Addie’s in nothing more than an over-sized t-shirt, her hair a tangled mess Sam can empathise with. She reddens when she sees him, but doesn’t move away from the window.

“Turning into a pretty wild night,” Sam says, in Dean’s voice, and that’s somehow more surprising down here, away from Dean and how not-weirded out he was.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Chris says, and he sounds as calm and drawly as ever, but his eyes are a little wild themselves when he looks around at Sam. “What with the snow, and you know. The wolf.” He reaches over to the table behind him, pushes a bottle at Sam. “Warm you up a bit.”

Sam can tell it’s the good stuff, and inwardly counts it as a victory over Dean. He settles at the table, glass in hand. “Has anything like this ever happened before?”

“If you mean the snow, no. If you mean the wolf, also no. Well, definitely not as big as that,” Chris says.

“Or as —“ Addie waves her own glass at the window, like that might cover it. Which it mostly does. “As obviously from a horror movie.”

Sam nods, and Chris laughs in a way that makes Sam pay attention. “It’s funny,” he says, though clearly he doesn’t think it is. “Ella and Joe were talking about the full moon. How they wanted a werewolf at Christmas.” He makes a ‘kids, what’re you gonna do?’ face, and Sam keeps his voice as even as he knows how in this body when he asks if he can talk to them. 

“Also,” he says. “It’s not the only weird thing that’s happened,” so at least they’re prepared when he brings Dean back down with him.

Addie and Chris still keep glancing between them, wary and confused, but the kids hardly seem to notice. They’re more than awake by the time they reach the kitchen, wide-eyed and overwhelmed by the combination of snow and an actual wolf outside their house. The piles of gifts they pass on the way are just fuel to the fire. The presence of two completely identical people doesn’t mean much in amongst all that.

“Of course we wanted it,” Joe says, when they’ve calmed down enough to pay attention to anything as mundane as conversation. “Not, like, for eating people and whatever. But they aren’t always bad, you know. Sometimes they’re heroes!”

Chris shoots Addie a look, somewhere between amused and accusatory. “I told you they were too young for _Twilight_.”

Addie ignores him. “You can’t really believe there’s a wolf out there because two kids wanted it.”

It’s not a question, and it’s directed at Sam, but it’s Chris who answers. “Kinda weird coincidence, right? On top of a whole lotta other weirdness. And it’s not like — you’ve heard the story Kate’s mama always told. If it was gonna happen somewhere, it would be here.”

“Oh come on,” Addie says. “Ain’t nobody believes that. Not even Kate.”

“Her mama did,” Chris says. “And she wasn’t what you would call superstitious or prone to nonsense.”

Addie’s got things to say on that, by the looks of her, but Dean cuts in. “What did she believe? And who’s Kate?”

Addie pours another finger of whiskey for each of them, and Chris says, “Kate runs the diner. You’ve probably met her. Her mama passed on last year. Wasn’t like she talked about it much. But there were a few of us — used to meet regular on Saturday nights, even after Susie passed on. Until a couple months ago, actually. She trusted us, I guess. So now and then she’d tell us about her life before Kate, and then her life after. How she thought there was something special about her. 

“All this happened before we got here, ok. But story goes, Susanna — that’s Kate’s mama, sorry — was broke. Husband died few years before that in a car accident just a couple miles up the road from here. Susie used to say he’d left her with no money, no kids, just grief and memories. Anyways, then she found Kate. Or Kate found her, depending on how you look at it. Other thing Susie always said was that Kate saved her life. Was down by the river, all by herself, little girl of no more than four or five. Susie took her in, just to keep her safe for the night. Always expected the cops would track down her real family, or someone would come looking for her.” He looks at Addie, then, and for a second, there’s just the ticking of the clock and the crackling of the fire.

“Neither happened,” Addie says. “And I guess that was weird. Now there would be processes and — I don’t know. Assessments and paperwork and Lord knows what. But it was thirty years ago. Kate came to stay and she kept on staying. It suited everyone. And then one day, Susie said she wanted to open a diner.”

“And let me guess,” Dean says. “Next day, one magically sprouted.”

Addie smiles a little. “It’s a small town. That we’d have noticed. But I guess it was like Kate.” She glances across at Chris, and shrugs. “We set up a business. It was hard, you know? Nothing came easy. To hear Suze tell it, she woke up one morning and there was a plot just waiting to be built on. Then there was a building just waiting to be hers. Wasn’t like she’d got any experience running a diner — or any business, come to that. But she got credit without a fuss. Whole place ran like clockwork from the day it opened.” She laughs to herself, and she actually sounds amused. “Used to make me kinda crazy, hearing her talk. and then I’d think, fuck it — sorry, kids. But she was due a little good luck. A lot of it. Resenting her just seemed small.”

“And she was kind,” Chris adds. “Her and Kate. Both of them. Helped us out a time or two when we were struggling to get by. And I know we weren’t the only ones. And sometimes it was practical things — casseroles for us that time Joe was in the hospital. But sometimes it was — you remember that time you lost your ring. Looked for it for days. I told Kate in passing, came home and found it in the footwell of the truck.” Addie shakes her head, and Chris smiles. “Coincidence, I know. But I’d searched that truck. We both had.”

Beside Sam, Dean shifts, like he’s nervous or impatient, Sam can’t tell. Sam knocks his knee up against his, rests it there while he looks at Ella and Joe. “Did you guys tell anyone else about the wolf?”

They’ve both sobered some during the story; wolf not withstanding, it’s the kind of night for it, like the world’s been shut out with snow and quiet. Now they both shake their heads. “We only talked about it at dinner with you guys that one time,” Ella says, looking at her parents.

“Here?” Dean asks, but nobody’s surprised when Addie says, “diner. I remember because Kate brought you extra ice cream, and I thought the last thing you needed was more sugar.”

“Sounds like we should talk to your girl,” Dean says. “Please tell me she lives within very short walking distance.” He jerks his head at the window, where the snow’s still falling.

“Have you seen this town? Everywhere’s within short walking distance.” then Chris looks at his kids. “You guys wanted snow too?” he asks. “I don’t remember that.”

“Please,” Joe says. “I wanted a werewolf and an Apple Watch, and she wanted an Xbox. Snow was way down the list.”

Dean stands, rolling his shoulders and pretending to be unconcerned. “Coincidence, maybe. they happen.” But Sam knows every tell he has, especially when he’s looking out for them.

“You’re such a liar,” he says as they walk out the door together, Kate’s address stored in Sam’s phone and scribbled on a bit of paper in his pocket, like it’s 1992, because in this weather he’s not taking precautions.

“Stones. Throw ‘em. You shouldn’t,” Dean says, and Sam swears he only doesn’t answer because they’re thigh-deep in snow, and there’s no use wasting energy.

He’s right about that, at least. It’s five minutes to walk to Kate’s house, under normal circumstances, according to Addie. It takes them twenty. Even dressed for it, Sam’s freezing when they knock on the door, and Dean doesn’t look much better. The only consolation is they don’t wait long — Kate answers almost before Dean’s lowered his fist. She’s in Goofy pyjamas and fluffy socks, but she doesn’t look like she’s just woken up.

“I got the sense you boys would be trouble,” is all she says, before she steps aside and gestures for them to come in.

The house is cosy — and not just in the sense of being blissfully warm. There are pictures of Kate and a woman Sam assumes is her mom on the wall; pretty Christmas garlands above the doors; and a dog basket by the stairs. Sam looks around for the dog and doesn’t see one.

“Upstairs,” Kate says. “He gets…a little protective. Figured it might not help.”

“You don’t live in a particularly sinister lair,” Dean says. “I don’t know whether that makes me more or less suspicious.”

Kate smiles over her shoulder as she leads them through to the living room. No more sinister there, either. Dean collapses onto a cream sofa that looks both incredibly comfortable and not generally used to soaked through people throwing themselves all over it. Kate doesn’t seem to mind. She sits on a chair by the window, says, “I’m not a monster. I did a terrible thing, but I swear, I try to help.”

“Talk,” Sam says, harsher than he’s felt since he came in. Kate starts, surprised, but she covers it quickly. Then she does as he asked.

She tells them her father was a fairy, that maybe he loved her birth mother, or maybe he didn’t. But either way, Kate was born, and her father wasn’t around. Even if he had been, it probably wouldn’t have been enough to stop her mother taking off — not because Kate was magic, either. Just because that was the kinda thing she was likely to do. What happened next they'd already heard, to a point. Susanna had found Kate; had loved her like she was special even before she knew she was magical. That discovery came later — not so much a discovery, as something over the years that couldn’t be ignored. Kate wanted things and they happened — bullies in school fell down stairs; school got canceled when she hadn’t done her math homework; pretty dresses turned up in her locker just before parties.

“I could’ve been so awful,” she says. “I know that. But Mom taught me to be better. That right and wrong applied to me same as anyone else. I could do more wrong, she said, but that just meant I could do more right, too. And sometimes I could pick up on things other people wanted, even without them telling me, and I liked making a difference. It was something no-one else could do, you know?”

“And where does Don Rollins fit in?” Sam asks the question for both of them before Dean can. For the first time, Kate’s head goes down, or more like her whole body curls in on itself. She fights it, though. Sam can see it, the determined way she builds herself up to look them in the eye.

“They knew,” she says. “Don and his sister. Their mom and mine were close, along with Chris and Addie and their parents. Karen and I were close, too, in school. She was —they seemed sweet. I trusted them. I never…I thought they were friends.”

Sam can guess the rest, but he makes her say it, because they have to be sure. How Steven knew Don had tried to steal from the company, had held it over him, used it to make Don’s life a misery. that Steven was a dick seemed to be true, at least. And then Don and Karen had come to Kate, demands lined up and binding spells and rituals all prepared.

“They wanted him dead,” she says now. “They just didn’t want to do it. And they knew how to hurt me. So I granted the wish. I couldn’t not do that; not once they were controlling me. But they didn’t say how.” Her eyes are hard, and her voice is bitter. “Smart enough to find the spell, and still so fucking stupid. I made Don do it. And I’m sorry for Mr Lafferty, no matter what he did. I am. But I’m not sorry for them.”

“And Karen?” Dean asks.

Kate bites her lip, curls her hands into fists — to stop them shaking, Sam thinks. “She wanted me to undo it. As if any magic can undo what’s done. She lost it when I told her that. Said she could fuck me over for good, same way I’d fucked her over. Only this time I was better prepared. I got a little counter magic of my own. But I guess mine was stronger.” She unclenches her fists, runs them through her hair. “I can’t make you believe I didn’t know it would kill her. But I didn’t. If I had, I can’t promise I wouldn’t have done it anyway, so I’m not exactly innocent.”

Sam looks at Dean, and Dean looks back at him. They nod at each other, almost in unison. “This giving people a chance thing is weird,” Dean says. “Very unsettling.”

To Kate he says, “You let us know if anyone comes at you again. And we’ll be keeping an eye on this place, so, you know. Try to keep unexplained homicides to a minimal.”

“Also maybe lose the wolf,” Sam says. “And, uh. I really don’t need to look like him.”

When they leave, the snow has stopped falling. Around them, it looks like a fairytale, and Sam supposes that’s fitting for a Christmas day with fairies and werewolves. “I missed being tall,” Sam says. ‘I missed it so much. I don’t know how you stand being so tiny.”

“Shut up,” Dean says. “My body was completely wasted on you.”

Sam doesn’t answer that, because it’s kind of true. They walk on in silence for a while, but Sam’s never been very good at leaving things alone. “You wanted the snow,” he says, and Dean shrugs.

“The pie was pretty good, Sammy.” Sam figures that’s all he’s going to get, but Dean surprises him. Which is unfair, because Dean’s trying these days, learning to let Sam in again. “It’s stupid,” he says. “But you — I fucked up before, trying to save you from the trials. But I let you go and you ended up with Lucifer — twice. I want it not to be like that. I used to be able to keep you safe easier than this. I wanted a couple of days to pretend. That’s all.”

Sam reaches out, curls a hand around Dean’s wrist and hangs on until they make it back to their room. Inside, he says, “You don’t want to know why?”

To his credit, Dean doesn’t pretend not to know what Sam’s talking about. “Figured you’d talk if you want to,” he says. “But yeah. Yeah, I’d like to know.”

Sam bites his lip, takes a breath. He thinks of what Dean said, what it took to admit that. “Not much to say, really,” he says, and then he steps into Dean’s space, fits one hand around the back of his neck, and the other around his face, and pulls him in. 

“Dude,” Dean says, but he doesn’t resist. Not until Sam’s kissed him stupid, at least, tongue-fucked his mouth like it’s the only chance he’s ever gonna get.

Then Dean says, “Sam —not if you don’t. Don’t do this if it isn’t what you want. Because I can’t — please.”

And that makes Sam laugh against his skin, a kind of hysterical thing, all unlikely relief. “I wanted you so much, she thought I wanted to _be_ you. And I don’t, you annoying motherfucker. You’re short. And you’re old. And I told you at the time you hadn’t fixed your right knee after the sprite incident. So that also makes you a moron.”

“Sammy,” Dean says, kindly. “I think she just thought you wanted your hands on the goods, and knew I was way out of your league. Accurate, dude.” 

But he’s reaching for Sam, tugging him in close, like he did all those years ago. Only not, because this isn’t so frantic. It’s deliberate, and he’s scared, Sam knows, but he’s not panicking, not like before. And maybe Sam’s just caught up in the idea of wanting things enough to make them happen, but he has the crazy idea everything can be different this time.

He gets a hand between them, palms Dean’s already hard dick, which makes Dean gasp and arch into the touch, even through a layer of denim. “Your standards must be slipping, then,” Sam says, “because you seem pretty into me.”

“Well, the last action I got was from the embodiment of evil and chaos, so I’m learning to adjust.” Dean slides his hands under Sam’s shirt, grinning against his mouth when Sam flinches from the cold.

“Jerk,” Sam says, and means it. 

Dean pushes him towards the bed, lets Sam kiss him again as he does. “Bitch,” he says, when they break apart, just before he shoves Sam down and crawls on top of him.


End file.
